The Art of Falling
by vickrok
Summary: He slipped twice, twice braced himself for a fall, but both times he caught himself somehow. **Written and completed before Season 4.**
1. Chapter 1

**This story was completed before Season 4 began.**

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Chapter 1

She didn't have a choice, she was going with him. That's what he told her.

She rolled her eyes, cussed under her breath, and slammed her desk drawers, all four of them. If Ferg and Ruby had been there, she wouldn't have acted like this. He'd had enough of it.

He slammed his own drawer, felt the veins in his neck bloating.

His intent hadn't been to intimidate, but when he got out there, she was standing with her back to the window, her eyes downcast as though she'd accepted what was coming and was waiting for it.

Dozens of times he'd been on the cusp of asking her what her problem was, when she planned to get over it, why she was still here if she was so unhappy. But he never did. Fear and guilt mixed with some other more pungent emotion he couldn't name always stopped him.

He'd acted crazy. He admitted that. And selfish, and that was worse. His memories were shrouded in dream-haze, but he remembered it all: He remembered her cleaning the blood from his face when he should have been cleaning the blood from hers, and he remembered the long stretch that followed when nothing at all passed between them.

"This is your job, Vic," he said. "If you want to keep it . . ."

"If I want to keep it what?" Her eyes flicked up to his face. "Say it."

It shouldn't have come as a surprise that she'd lost respect for him, and it definitely shouldn't have pissed him off, but it did. Sometimes it really did.

"If you want to keep it," he said, "you'll do it."

"So you're saying if I don't do it, you'll fire me."

He scratched his cheek, expecting sandpaper. He still hadn't gotten used to that.

"That's the way it works, Vic."

He went back into his office, but he didn't close the door. She was quiet the rest of the morning.

After lunch he picked up Omar's truck. When he got back, she was waiting outside the station in shorts and hiking boots, holding a day pack.

"Got your sidearm?" he asked when she got in.

It was an impotent reminder of his authority. Of course she had her sidearm. She was a pain in his ass, but she never let him down.

"Yup," she said then spent the remainder of the thirty minute ride staring out her window.

After talking with the ranger, they followed the trail around the north face of Buck Peak. Though it was late May and warm, there were still crunchy patches of snow thriving in the shadows. At the third gulley, they left the trail and travelled cross-country to the ridge then down the other side into the clearing.

The plantation was what they'd expected: small and healthy, a perfect square of delicate, brilliant green. A local operation, the ranger had said, kids most likely. The plants probably wouldn't even make it past adolescence.

She took pictures while he bagged evidence. There wasn't much—no encampment, no piles of trash, no irrigation system beyond furrows carved for strategic use of the incline. The crop depended on run-off and rain, and so far that seemed to be working.

"Science nerds," she said.

He didn't look at her.

"Dean's list science nerds," he said.

"They can wave goodbye to their scholarships."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

He was careful not to touch her as he put two of the five evidence bags in her pack and zipped it up.

"That comfortable?" he asked.

She smelled like eucalyptus.

"It's fine."

The pack rested on the bulge of her sidearm held tight against her body by the waistband of her shorts.

"Want me to put the gun in?" he asked.

He imagined his fingers sliding over the sweaty skin at the small of her back.

"What if I need it?" she said.

"Good point."

He tried to get her to walk in front of him so he could keep an eye on her going over the rocks, but it turned into another negotiation, another struggle, and he gave up. He listened for her breathing behind him and adjusted his pace accordingly. She was in excellent shape, but his stride was twice as long as hers, and the terrain was technical, and the air was thin.

"You're not slowing down for me, are you?" she said, winded.

"No."

"Just go your own pace."

At the top of the ridge, he waited for her.

"You didn't have to wait," she said, working to catch her breath.

"The County might disagree."

She scoffed. He squinted out through the trees towards Durant. There was no winning.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay what?"

She crossed her arms and cocked her hip, but there was no color, no spirit behind it. He didn't want to be the cause of that. He lifted his sunglasses and looked down at her, at the beads of sweat on her nose, at his reflection in her Ray-Bans.

"Never mind," she said and started down the north side.

He followed at a safe distance.

Back on the trail in the early dusk of the high country, he pulled his Nalgene from the side pouch of his pack and unscrewed the top.

"Want yours?" he said.

She was gazing down into the misty ravine far below. She was right next to him, but she wasn't there. He pulled her bottle out and handed it to her.

"The angle of repose," she said.

"It's steeper than that."

"You think?"

"Yeah," he said. "That's more than thirty-four degrees."

He hadn't noticed on the way up. It was quite a drop.

She took a drink, and another, then she screwed the cap back on and turned to him. He startled when her eyes met his, and squirmed when they stayed.

He took another drink, replaced the cap. She handed him her bottle and took his, maintaining the eye contact. That in itself was sufficiently strange, but then she reached up with her free hand, and he flinched. His swirling thoughts gained momentum. She paused, watching his confusion while her hand hovered, then she touched his face, ran her thumb over his chin, just below his lip.

He felt the wetness there, the water that had dribbled undetected from the wide mouth of his bottle. She wiped her thumb on her shorts but still didn't look away.

"You never say my name anymore," he said. Some other mind was controlling his mouth.

She said, "I know." Then finally, finally she withdrew.

She pushed his bottle into its sheath then turned so he could do the same, and that was that, as though it were all completely normal.

She waited for him to start walking down the trail, and even more than before, he wanted her to go in front, but he couldn't bring it up now, he couldn't have said anything, even if he had the words and the ability.

The snow had turned to slush in their absence, and in spots the slush was slippery. He wasn't worried, but he thought she might be. There were sections of wet dirt and rocks and pine needles, then there was the slush again. The further they descended, the slushier it got to the point where he slipped twice, twice braced himself for a fall, but both times caught himself somehow.

He turned to find she was further behind than he'd realized. She was being cautious.

He watched until she said, "I'm fine," and for once she wasn't being defensive. "Don't watch. It makes me nervous."

So he kept going, focusing on the sound of her footsteps. He tried to figure out what to say, given the odd shift in tenor, but he didn't get it done, and ultimately it was her who spoke, calling forward to him, "Why are you such a dick all the time?"

For a variety of reasons, the natural impulse was to stop and to face her, but he knew it was in his best interest under the circumstances not to react.

He mulled it over, monitored his respiration before calling back to her over his shoulder, calmly, "You think it's me being a dick? Now, I mean?"

"Don't you?"

Her voice was further away, so he raised his to say, "I was being a dick for a long time. I'll give you that."

"But?"

"But now I think it's you."

She grunted some sort of response, like maybe his honesty had caught her off guard, and she might have made some other noise, something higher pitched, but she didn't say any actual words. He wanted to give her time to do that. Wait-time it was called. The world in general needed more of it.

They weren't fighting. He was fairly certain they weren't doing that, but when time expanded to fill the space available, he re-evaluated, kicked himself for not lying.

"You're offended," he said, shuffling through a slushy patch.

Still, she said nothing, and it was then that the pieces began floating towards each other. He strained for the sound of her footfall, but it wasn't there.

"Come on, Vic," he said, thick with emotion he would have rather not shared.

He didn't know what he was making such a big deal about. In this particular situation, he had nothing to lose. That had already happened. Whatever it was she wanted to say to him, he could take it.

So he sucked it up, and he turned around. And she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

He scanned the surrounding forest, easing his Colt out from under his pack, under his waistband, and bringing it down along the side of his leg. He heard a woodpecker, the rush of the stream in the canyon, a crow squawking, but nothing unusual, nothing human.

He smelled the butterscotch of the ponderosas that reminded him of summers growing up.

Already it was becoming difficult to distinguish shapes and textures in the evening grayscale. Far above the trees to the west, daylight still smoldered yellow behind the peaks, but it wasn't helping down here. He hadn't planned for them to be out so late, hadn't taken into account the slow snowmelt on the north side, and the physical exertion required to climb to the top of the ridge twice.

All day he'd been restless and distracted. He'd anticipated her resistance, and he'd known that once again, he wouldn't address it with her, though he meant to someday. One moment he'd been her friend, he'd been in her corner, and the next, he wasn't: no warning, no explanation, no apology. He treated her now as though she'd gone from zero to bitter for no discernable reason because he was afraid to admit that he'd known she was quietly suffering her own losses.

Sean aside, she'd been closer to him than to anyone. He was sorry he'd left her so alone, and he was sorry he hadn't gotten around to telling her that.

He moved as quickly as he could while still surveying the scene, still covering himself. Avoiding the trail itself, he walked along the uphill side. For at least fifty yards there were only his tracks in the slush and in the wet soil. Over a section of rock, the wet chevron marks from the soles of his new hikers were clear. They'd needed to look like regular people, weekend warrior types. A couple, but he hadn't said that to her. It was a given, and maybe part of why she hadn't wanted to do it.

About half way through one of the bigger snowfields, another set of prints became visible. Three times he walked back and forth along the section making sure it was only two sets, and making sure the other set was hers.

There were no other fresh tracks. She hadn't been attacked, at least not by a person, and it wasn't a grizzly or a mountain lion, either. That he would have heard.

"Vic!" he yelled, his voice not carrying the way he needed it to. "Vic! Where are you?"

For the first time it crossed his mind that this might be intentional, that she might be punishing him, but the idea wilted as fast as it had bloomed. She was difficult, defiant at times, rude as hell, but she wasn't passive-aggressive. If she'd had a serious problem with his comment, she would have told him to fuck off. Aggressive-aggressive was more like it.

"Vic!" he yelled again.

When he looked down the side of the mountain from the trail, his stomach constricted. It wasn't thick forest, and there was soft ground cover and loose soil wet with the run-off, but there were also a few rock outcroppings that could inflict significant injury.

He slid his sidearm into his waistband and pulled the nylon belt tight. He hated the pants. Martha had given them to him for Father's Day so he wouldn't "have to" wear Levis when they explored the Tetons that summer. He'd laughed. They'd never ended up going, and until now, he'd never worn them. He really could be a dick sometimes.

He took the headlamp out of the small pocket of his pack and put it on. It didn't do much for distance in the twilight, but it gave him a better view of the trail, helped him find the slide mark off the downhill side. He kicked sideways into the loose soil to make steps for himself as he went, and he followed it all the way to a fallen tree that was elevated maybe two feet from the forest floor. There were fresh breaks in the small branches of the underside.

He climbed over the log and dropped to the other side where he slipped and began sliding down the steep hill. He turned over and managed to kick his feet into the dirt to stop himself.

When he caught his breath, he called her name again.

He turned over and lay there for a moment. The sky was deep blue, and the North Star was visible through the dark trees. He clicked the headlight off and listened.

"Vic," he said.

An image of her sliding to the edge and launching off into the ravine invaded his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"No, Vic. Not like this."

"Not like what?"

He sat up. The voice was thin and wafty, and he thought he might have imagined it.

"Vic?"

"I'm stuck."

He shot to his feet and began sliding again, so he grabbed onto a low branch of a listing tree. It ripped the skin of his palm before he was able to stop himself.

"Where are you?" he said. "Keep talking."

"I have like a pound of dirt in my underwear."

"Oh, thank God."

Her voice was coming from his left, further down the hill. He switched the light back on and slid carefully to the next tree.

"Keep talking," he said.

"You wouldn't be so grateful if it was your underwear."

He was in a controlled slide, breathing hard, smiling. He was smiling.

"Where are you, Vic?"

"I should've gone in front."

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Where are you?"

He inched his way around the trunk of a tree, hugging it, and as soon as he got to the other side, his headlight beam glanced off her hair. She was sitting, leaning back on her elbows, her left leg in a hole. He sat down on the damp grass and slid on his butt the rest of the way.

She had leaves in her hair, and dirt and scuff marks on her arms and her one visible leg.

"I thought this was it," she said, squinting into the headlight. He lowered it.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. I just slipped, and then whoosh, I was moving."

"I need to check you," he said. "Okay?"

He made a divot with his boot to stop himself from sliding.

"Did you hit your head?"

"I don't think so."

"What hurts?"

"My finger."

It worried him that she didn't mention her leg, but he took her hand, palpated the bones of each finger. She watched him, didn't react to anything he did.

"Probably just a little sprain," he said, caressing her palm before he returned her hand to her. "I have to do the whole thing now. Okay? Before we get your leg out."

"Okay."

He started with her head, ran his fingers over her scalp, under her hair, pressing lightly all over, behind her ears and down her neck, feeling each vertebra. He got down on his knees, moved closer to her to reach around and check her spine. His mouth was next to her ear. Her hair smelled of pine.

"You cold?" he whispered.

"A little."

"I'll hurry."

He felt along her collarbone and down both arms, down the other five fingers, then down the one leg. She had a lot of little scratches and scrapes, but everything seemed to be intact. The abdomen and pelvis were part of it, but he balked at that, second-guessed himself and sat back on his heels.

"You chickening out?" she said. "I fell a hundred feet down a steep incline."

"It was more than that," he said.

She lay flat. He felt the four quadrants of her stomach then froze again.

"I get it. You don't want to touch my ass."

"I do want to touch your ass, Vic."

He could feel her eyes on his face, but he didn't look at her. His hair was hanging in his eyes as he slid his hands under her and felt her hips, then he pressed down on her pelvic bones from above.

"Let's get that leg out," he said.

It was some sort of sink hole, and her foot was jammed between a root and the side. He took a stick and scraped the wall of the hole until the space was big enough to allow her to pull it out.

"Hold on," he said.

He held her around her thigh, while she lifted herself and shifted further up the hill. Once the foot was free, she was actually able to put enough weight on it to push herself up. They moved away from the hole a couple of feet and he checked that leg, too. She gasped when he pressed her ankle. It was swollen, but not black and blue, not yet at least.

"Let's get more clothes on you," he said.

She pulled a fleece out of her pack and put it on, and he helped her zip the legs of her pants on. He was kneeling in front of her, straddling the good leg when she handed him her water bottle, and he took a drink.

"We'll get you out of here," he said.

"Tonight?"

"It's not far."

When he handed the bottle back to her, she ran her fingers over his before taking it.

He scooted up, so he was sitting just a little lower than her on the hill, his knee against her forearm. He took her hand.

"You know, Walt," she said. "I really hate you."

He kissed her cheek.

"I hate you too, Vic," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

He had his foot on a downhill tree stump to prevent him from sliding, and she was uphill from him, the green bulb of her headlight shining in his eyes. He wrapped her ankle and put her sock and shoe back on for her. She could have done it herself, but she didn't try to stop him.

"Thanks," she said.

He nodded as he finished tying the shoe.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?"

"For not being there."

She started to stand, keeping most of her weight on her right leg. "You can't be everywhere for everyone all the time," she said. There was pain in her voice.

"I know." He helped her to her feet with his arm around her waist. They would slip on the way, it was inevitable, but it didn't have to start now. "That's not what I meant."

She shined her green light up into his face, blinding him.

"I mean I'm sorry I checked out for so long."

She turned carefully so that she was facing uphill into the cold darkness. He kept his hands on her hips.

"It's not your job to be there for me," she said.

There was subtext. He'd thought about it enough now to understand what his obsession and his decline and his rampage had looked like to her.

"We needed each other."

"I did just fine," she said.

She went first, and he followed close behind. While she was clearly hurting, she was ambulatory.

It was a glute-burning, frustrating slog in which a step did not equal a step. On a particularly steep section, it felt as if they were on a treadmill, a sensation not helped by the fact that in the dark it was difficult to determine how much climbing they still had ahead of them.

In most places the ground was soft enough to allow him to kick steps into the soil for leverage, so when she slipped, he was able to stop her fall, once with a hand to her back, another time by grabbing her arm.

Towards the top, he allowed some distance between them, conscious of not hovering, but she was always within the low beam of his headlamp. The slope had been gentler for a while, but as they approached the trail, it became ladder-steep again. They were almost there when his foot slipped, and she turned her head to look, causing her to slip. She began sliding fast, face down. Without thinking, he tackled her, and for a few nerve-wracking seconds, they slid together, him half on top of her. Where the slope leveled out, they slowed, and he was able to step on a rock below and grab a branch on a log above. His headlamp had fallen off in the grass, and hers was pressed with her forehead into the dirt.

The night seemed to yawn around them.

"I've got you," he said into her hair. They were both breathing hard. "Did I hurt you?"

He moved off of her but kept his arm tight around her waist.

"I'm fine."

She twisted in his arm so she was facing him, her headlight caked with mud and shining up into the trees. She turned it off.

"You sure?" he said.

She nodded. "Yeah."

He was beginning to pull himself up when she took a fistful of the front of his shirt and brought him closer.

He'd spent half the climb wondering if he'd been inappropriate with her earlier, too familiar. She hadn't said anything. Now he could feel the warm flutter of her exhale on his lips.

"Vic," he said, low in his throat.

An hour earlier she'd told him she hated him. He'd known what she was telling him, and what he was telling her, but he knew, too, that she was wary of him, and she had good reason to be. There was scar tissue between them. It wasn't visible through all this, but it hadn't miraculously cleared up over the last two hours, either.

Her hand was still gripping his shirt, and though he couldn't see her eyes, he knew she was looking at his mouth when she said, "You okay?"

"Me?"

He adjusted his hold around her waist, and his palm hit skin. He should have pulled away, but he didn't. In fact, he slid his hand up over her smooth, taut skin to the inlet between her ribs and her hip.

He tried not to move his fingers, tried not to feel her.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm fine."

He wasn't sure what this was, even now with his hand under her shirt and her eyes on his lips and her fist gripping his shirtfront. Before his downfall, sometimes he'd wondered if she thought about him that way, too. Sometimes it had seemed like she did. But since he'd become aware of her again, she'd looked at him as though she was disgusted with him, disappointed in him.

They were here together on the cold, damp forest floor in the dim glow of his cast-off light, but he didn't really know where they were.

"It's okay, Walt," she said, disengaging from him, starting to pull away.

He couldn't let that happen, so he kissed her.

Then he kissed her again, swiping by hormonal instinct his tongue between her lips, and she responded, leaning in closer, and he squeezed the skin at her side, stretched his fingers over the curve of her hip, under her waistband. The gun was still there, and he slid his fingers down next to the muzzle.

Her body was pressed against his, and he was still holding them both in place with his foot on the rock and his hand on the branch.

"Wow," she said.

His face flushed hot.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm . . . ."

"Wow. Yeah."

She wasn't teasing him, but he was embarrassed just the same.

"I know," he said.

"I mean that's really . . . ."

"I know, Vic."

She touched him over his pants, which were of a much thinner material than his Levis, and his foot slipped. He lost his grip on the branch, but somehow she managed to grab his belt and hold him in place.

"We should get off this hillside," he said, aching but relieved.

On the trail, he went in front, leading her and holding her hand.

About halfway down she stopped. "Give me a minute, would you?" she said. "This dirt situation is seriously uncomfortable."

It took him a second to catch on. When he did, his face flushed again.

She dug a packet of wet wipes out of her pack. While he stood facing down the hill, she held his shoulder for balance. He heard her zipper, felt her shaking her pants, then maybe her underwear, heard the crinkling of the package, caught a whiff of the chemical powder scent, and tried not to envision what she was doing.

When she was zipped and snapped, he watched her crouch to gather all the wipes and put them in the small pocket of her pack.

"Better?" he asked, taking her hand again.

"Bad place for dirt."

He could imagine.

The parking lot was pitch dark and vacant except for the black truck. The ranger's residence was at the National Forest Headquarters fifteen miles west. He opened the tailgate and without asking, without prepping her, he lifted her onto it.

"Walt."

"Yeah?" He slid his hand back where it had been earlier, and he kissed her the way he'd been kissing her up there.

Moving in tighter between her knees, he pulled her into him, pressing their chests together. He was already so hard again it hurt. But in a good way. It was all good. She kissed his neck, trailed her fingers down his chest, and then she touched him again, and he flinched like he had when she'd touched his face, but she held him through it. It was almost too much.

"Walt."

"Really?" His voice was shaky.

"Yeah."

"Maybe we should talk."

"We'd talk ourselves out of it," she said.

She kissed him. It was hard to think.

"Maybe we'd be right," he said.

"We would be."

There were three blankets in the back of the truck. She knew Omar. He wasn't going to wreck the moment by reminding her what they were likely used for.

It was a waist-down thing, too cold for more, but the whole time, his hand on bare skin under her shirt, her lips and warm breath on his neck, her hand on his left cheek, pulling him in deeper when it didn't seem possible.

Too soon it was over. He rolled off her, and within minutes, she fell asleep with her head on his chest, her fingertips under the elastic of his boxers. But he was wide awake, gazing up at the blinking, falling stars.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The decision had been rash.

When he'd told her to take the day off, to get her ankle checked out and get some rest, he hadn't calculated the cost on his end. It hadn't occurred to him that as the day lumbered on, images of last night would act as a magnet, jerking him back whenever he came within its field. He was held captive there in his mind and in his body, too, which was more unruly.

It was a hot, hard, disruptive yearning.

They hadn't talked about anything. She'd been in the shadowland between sleep and wake the whole drive home, and everything he came up with to say didn't sound right given the conflicting circumstances.

He wasn't worried today like maybe he should have been that he could have knocked her up, or that protection for other reasons might have been necessary; he just wanted to see her. He didn't have to touch her. If he couldn't see her or touch her, he'd be satisfied with talking to her, though at some point soon, he needed to be near her. Tomorrow seemed a long way off.

When they'd arrived back at the station a little after midnight, she'd still been out of it. He figured the adrenaline dump from the fall had wiped her out. He was comfortable with that idea. Less comforting was the prospect that she was already questioning herself, wondering what she'd done. An idea like that could do damage, and he wasn't willing to let it take hold. It wasn't that he couldn't live with the rejection—he'd accepted the likelihood of that going into it. He just didn't want to let go just yet.

He walked her over to her truck, asked her more than once if she was okay to drive, and looked down at her for long enough that she appeared flustered in the murky yellow glow of the streetlight. He opened the door for her, and when she brushed past, he hooked his arm around her waist and reeled her in. She kissed him back, there was no question about that. His shirt clenched in both fists this time, she moaned into his mouth, said his name again, dropped an F-bomb.

"Come home with me," he said without knowing he was going to say it.

"You ready again?"

"I was ready thirty seconds after we were done."

She sort of nibbled his neck, and he felt her smile spreading against his pulse point.

"I better go."

He waited for an explanation, but none came.

He acted like he understood. It was too much to ask after everything, but he wanted her to promise they would be together like that again. He didn't ask, though, and she didn't offer.

So he suffered, all day, in a new location with her but still not knowing where they were.

Ferg got hold of security camera footage from the Conoco station at the edge of the National Forest, and identified the suspected growers as two boys and a girl, all seniors at Sheridan High School, all Academic Decathlon state finalists, all on the cross country team. Now he was out making contact, and Ruby was on an extended lunch, and the phones weren't ringing.

It was a sprained ankle. She didn't need a whole day off for that, and even if she did, it was afternoon and she hadn't stopped in to update him on her condition or called to check on the progress of the investigation. Granted, she wasn't that kind of team player anymore, but today was different.

Maybe if he'd moved into the Twenty-first Century with everybody else, she would email him now, or send him a text message. Maybe she needed something less intense than a face-to-face visit or a voice-to-voice call, but all he had was the guy he was today, a guy who could write her a letter that would take at least a day to reach her. He was assuming she'd be back at the station by then.

At two-thirty, he dialed her number. It rang once and he hung up. He called again at two-fifty and again, he hung up. Seconds later, the office phone rang.

"Sheriff's Department."

"Walt?" It was her, talking to him like he was five. "Are you calling me and hanging up?"

He felt like an idiot.

"Uh . . . I. Yeah, I was calling, but something came up." He cleared his throat. "How's the ankle?"

"It's a sprain," she said. "Weston recommends three weeks rest."

"What?"

"I'm kidding. I'll be in tomorrow."

He picked up the base of the phone, walked over to the door, and closed it on the empty office.

"How about dinner tonight?" he said.

"Dinner?"

"Yeah."

There was something rhythmic in the background, the dishwasher maybe.

"Walt, I don't think—"

"A drink then."

"What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did I misread something?"

"No," he said, but he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Why do you want to get a drink then?"

"I thought we could talk."

"About the case?"

Now it felt like the dishwasher was in his head. "No," he said. "About last night."

"I'm not doing that."

"I'll pick you up."

"It's three o'clock," she said.

"Later I mean. Ferg IDed the kids. We're meeting with them and their parents at the ranger station in an hour."

"I'd like to be there for that."

There was a bursting sensation in his chest and the warmth from it flooded his core.

"Okay."

He waited.

"Can you come get me on your way?"

The magnet tugged at him.

"Sure," he said.

He combed his hair, washed his face, brushed his teeth, put deodorant on, and changed into the stiff navy blue shirt he kept there but never wore because it was uncomfortable. His boots needed oiling, but he didn't have time or oil, so he sat at his desk.

At twenty after Ruby came back in. For something to do, he went out to greet her.

"Don't you look handsome. What's the occasion?"

He felt self-conscious, foolish.

"No occasion," he said. "We found the horticulturists."

"Well done." Now she was talking to him like he was five.

Before leaving, he changed back into the worn black shirt he'd been wearing earlier. When he came out, Ruby looked confused, suspicious even, but she didn't say anything about it.

Vic was standing in her driveway in her uniform. All the way over he'd imagined walking up the front path, ringing the bell, escorting her out to the Bronco where he'd get the door for her. As it was, he didn't even turn the engine off, she just opened the door herself and got in.

"You're getting around."

"It's not bad," she said. "I got lucky."

He turned to look at her and she winked. He blushed. He needed to get a handle on that.

He told her about the kids, their credentials, their bright futures.

"Not with a felony under their belts."

"Cultivation isn't a felony in Wyoming."

"You're shittin' me."

"Nope."

"That much?"

"It's a misdemeanor in any amount. Over six plants it's a felony in Colorado, though."

"No it isn't."

"It is," he said. "Google it."

"The words _Google it_ just came out of your mouth."

"I'm full of surprises."

"A lot less today than yesterday," she said, staring straight ahead down the highway.

He grinned. "True."

He wanted to take her hand or touch her cheek, or stop the car and bend her over the tailgate.

"I'd rather not arrest them," he said. "I'd rather see them clean it up and commit to volunteer hours."

"Are you asking me what I think?" She really didn't seem sure.

"I ask you what you think all the time."

"Not lately you don't."

He hadn't realized that.

"I value your opinion."

"Then I'd say I agree unless they or their parents are total assholes."

They weren't total assholes. He let Vic loose on them for a few minutes, firing off words like _conviction_ and _sentencing_ and _drug offense_ and _criminal record_. By the time she was finished, the kids were terrified and the adults ashamed, and nobody argued anything.

They'd clear the crop as soon as school was out and work off sixty hours each over the summer on trail maintenance and campground clean-up. In September they'd go their separate ways with this and Wyoming far behind them.

He'd been calm watching her work her magic, marveling that she was so beautiful and so alive and that she'd let him touch her the way he had. In the Bronco again, though, heading for Durant, it felt as though they were plowing towards a cliff.

He pulled into her driveway and took her hand, held it tight on the seat so she couldn't slip away.

"How about that drink?" he said. "I'll wait while you change."

"Walt."

There was something in her eyes that he hoped wasn't pity.

"So, what, Vic? We just act like it never happened?"

"You said that, not me."

"You didn't say anything." The frustration raised his voice, but at the same time, his mind like the sky was clouding over, muffling the experience.

She pulled her hand out from under his. It felt like a final act, like the sealing off of this gate that had only just opened. But then something strange happened: She brought that hand up, fingers into his hair to the back of his head, and pulled him towards her.

"I've said plenty."

She kissed him like she'd had the same kind of day he'd had.

The second they were inside, she was on him, kissing and unbuttoning and touching and pulling. His hands and his heart and his mouth and his mind were everywhere. They never made it out of the foyer, ended up with her bare legs around his waist, her back against the door, him holding her up, his pants and shorts pooled around his boots, and one hand behind her head, padding it as it thumped against the doorbell box.

* * *

 **Just one more chapter coming . . . this time for sure. Some time before 9/10. Thanks for your reads and reviews and PMs . . . all three are always appreciated.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I've been working on this all day, and I can't seem to make the end of the story fit within this chapter. Unfortunately, that makes for a very short transitional one. Sorry . . . I couldn't make it work the way I originally planned. I'll get the last one out either by tomorrow or never as this week of work is going to be very busy. Thanks for reading!**

* * *

Chapter 5

They never planned it and never discussed it. It just kept happening.

Sometimes it was at his place and sometimes it was at hers, but for the first few weeks, it was never in a bed and never entirely unclothed.

They talked more now at work than they had in months. She'd tell him about her mom hounding her to move back home, and he'd tell her about Cady's pasty new boyfriend, and she did what he told her to do with minimal argument. In a fragile, electric sort of way, it was as though they were friends again.

But once they were alone, once skin touched skin behind closed doors, the conversation ceased. They could go hours without speaking about anything beyond the mechanics of what they were doing, and once they were done, she always had some reason to pull away, to get up, to create space between them.

It was incredible, but it was far from ideal.

They were in his living room, him snapping his shirt, her zipping her jeans when he finally asked what they were doing.

"Fucking," she said, no wait-time necessary.

It hit him like a punch to the kidneys.

He said, "Okay," but it wasn't.

Since the night in the bed of the truck, he hadn't held her in his arms, and they hadn't fallen asleep together. Sometimes while she was in control, arms over his shoulders, hands gripping the back of a couch or a chair, she seemed to forget her stance. She'd look in his eyes, so deep it dislodged the items of his interior. At those times, it felt as if they were communicating about this thing between them, it felt like more. At the end of those times, though, she couldn't detach from him fast enough.

He wanted it to be more. He wanted to talk about it. But there was risk involved in putting it out there. He wasn't okay with it, but losing it would have been worse than accepting it the way it was.

One June night at his cabin they'd been particularly active, and they'd had quite a few beers during the intermissions. In the early morning hours, he convinced her not to leave, coaxed her into his bedroom for the first time. He undressed her, and she let him. When she fell asleep, he slid over to her and held her. At dawn, she stirred. She must have thought he was asleep; before she left, she kissed him, and she touched his face, and she whispered, "God, Walt."

She never did that.

For the next week she was "busy," and he ached.

They'd only been back at it for a few days when he couldn't leave well enough alone.

She was on his lap on the couch in his dark office, where they'd promised they would never be again. But it was the Fourth of July and they'd spent the night driving all over the County in response to domestic disputes and fires and bottle rocket accidents and drunken traffic incidents and a near drowning in a backyard pool and idiots firing handguns into the air in town. They were exhausted.

It was slower than usual, more intense, and she kissed him the whole time like she needed it the way he needed it. She never did that, either. Afterwards, she didn't move off him. She wrapped her arms tight around his torso and breathed into his neck, and in the dim light of the streetlamp filtering through the blinds, she looked like an angel.

"Vic?" he said, stroking her hair.

"Hmm?"

"That's not what it is."

"What what is?" she said, all dreamy and soft.

"This. We're not just fucking."

She did exactly what he might have expected her to do if he'd thought about any of it ahead of time: She pushed hard against his chest and out of his arms and stood up. As hot as it was in there, he felt instantly cold.

She sorted through the clothes on the floor, tossing his onto the couch next to him. She was half dressed before he could snap himself out of it and stand up. He pulled his jeans on without his boxers and buttoned them up, watching her.

"Say something," he said.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Whatever you're feeling."

"I'm feeling like I want to go home."

She was buttoning her shirt almost frantically. He grabbed her wrists and she immediately tried to yank them back. It was a mistake, but it was too late. He'd already done it.

"Let go of me." There was a crackling tremor in her voice.

"We should talk," he said. "We need to talk about this."

"Stop."

"We can't do this anymore, Vic."

He felt her body tense even more. "No one's got a gun to your head, Walt."

"That's not what I meant."

She jerked her wrists back and twisted, and though he could have held on, he let her go.

"Please, Vic."

"You have to stop."

"Why? Why do I have to stop?"

"Because."

He tried to pull her to him, but she backed away.

"That's not an answer," he said, anger pulsing in his temples and his jaw.

She buckled her belt, then turned towards the door. He grabbed her hand and she stopped.

"I want to wake up with you, Vic."

"I can't do this," she said without turning to look at him.

"Do what? What are we doing?"

"Nothing," she said. "We're not doing anything."

He let go of her hand.

"Okay," he said even though it wasn't.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

If he hadn't dropped by the Red Pony, he might never have known.

He'd spent half the afternoon out at the Winding River Ranch taking yet another report on a stolen horse. It was the third incident in six weeks, and it was starting to smell like insurance fraud. Vic had been helping him with the case, but she was off Saturday and Sunday. It didn't seem right to call her in for something non-life-threatening when she already had to work Labor Day.

She would have done it if he'd asked. That was the hardest part for him: Her loyalty was stronger than it had ever been, and he didn't deserve it. She hadn't put in her notice, either, not yet at least, and the bitterness that had been there before their little fling hadn't returned afterwards. She kept her distance physically, but in every other way, she was back on the team.

It was late afternoon by the time he finished up. He wasn't planning on stopping, but Henry was out front helping Marco Leghorn attach his trailer barbecue while the extra event staff folded the tables and chairs and moved them to the shed in the back.

The sun was low in the sky.

"You missed Marco's culinary extravaganza," Henry said.

"Another stolen horse."

"Are you staying for a beer?"

He didn't feel much like it, but part of his plan for not slipping back into the hole he'd finally climbed out of was to spend more time with Henry.

"She is still here," Henry said as they walked through the saloon doors.

"You couldn't have mentioned that before?"

"I did not realize you were ducking her now."

"I'm not."

She was down at the end of the bar with a cowboy on either side of her. Enthralled as she was with the conversation, she didn't notice them come in. His stomach knotted up, and he considered leaving.

Henry got him a Ranier, and he stood at the center of the bar for a few minutes until she noticed him in the mirror. She smiled and said something to the cowboys that got them to clear out. Both tipped their hats to him as they passed.

He stayed where he was and so did she. Henry bussed the cowboys' bottles and said something to Vic he couldn't hear. He felt lonely.

"My ride ditched me," she said to him in the mirror.

"Who was your ride?"

"Cady. And pasty-boy."

"They were here?"

"Yup. But they had to go. I think they're still pretty horny for each other."

"That's my daughter, Vic."

"You're right. Gross. Sorry."

She got off her stool and slid her longneck down the counter with her as she walked. She sat on the stool next to him. She smelled like barbecue and flowers and beer.

He still hadn't gotten past the desire to kiss her when she got this close, which wasn't very often.

"Horace lost another Appaloosa overnight."

"You're shittin' me."

"Nope."

"He thinks everyone around him is stupider than he is."

"Seems to."

"That philosophy works better when it's true."

"There's no data on that. The people it's actually true for don't think it," he said.

She smiled at him in that way that used to make him think she might love him, too.

"Want another one?"

"I still have to walk home."

"I'll take you," he said.

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh really."

He felt his face redden. "You know what I mean."

"One more then," she said. She was a little slurry.

Every time he talked to her for any extended period, he battled with the same anxiety that churned inside him now: He was terrified that she was going to tell him she was leaving, and if he could just hold it off, keep it at bay, somehow get from this point to the end of the conversation without her saying it, then maybe that dim ray of hope could remain on the horizon for one more day.

It was dark by the time they walked out to the Bronco. The air was warm and still. Now not only was she a little slurry, but she was a little wobbly, too.

He opened the door for her and she got in.

"You're always such a gentleman, Walt."

"Not always," he said.

He hadn't meant it to sound as suggestive as it did, but she didn't seem to notice. She just stared down into her lap like she was gearing up to say something else.

The whole seven minute ride back to her house he waited, but she never got around to it. When he pulled into her driveway, she opened the door.

"Hey," he said, his hand on her shoulder. "What's going on?"

"I drank too much."

"You'll be all right. Drink a lot of water."

"I have to work tomorrow."

"I know."

"On Labor Day."

"I know."

She nodded then got out.

He came around to the other side. As soon as he stepped into the triangle of white light from the cab, she hugged him. He couldn't recall her ever initiating a hug, except maybe on the Fourth, before his final, fatal mistake.

He held her. A damp spot expanded on the front of his shirt.

"Vic, what is it?"

Here it was, the moment he'd been fending off.

She said something into his shirt, but it was muffled, and he didn't get much of it.

She pulled back and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand then looked up at him. She poked him in the chest.

"You don't have room for me in there."

It was so far from what he'd expected that he had trouble processing the words.

"What do you mean?"

"You're at capacity."

A tear trickled down her cheek, and she wiped that away, too.

"No," he said because it seemed like something he should deny, but he hadn't had time to make sense of it yet.

She'd never mentioned this. She'd never said much of anything.

"Even if we did have something more than what we had," she said, wistful and beaten, "I'd always be second in line."

She made a choking sound and brought her hand up to cover her mouth.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She looked up at him, a crinkle between her brows.

"No," he said. "I didn't mean that. I don't think it's true, Vic. You never told me you felt that way."

She stood on her toes and kissed his lips lightly.

"It's okay, Walt."

"It's not okay," he said. "It's not true."

She kissed him again. Everything felt off balance and out of alignment. He should have just left it at that, but he couldn't.

"You can't just bring this up and not follow through," he said.

She kept kissing him. It was very distracting. He held her upper arms and eased her back.

"We need to talk about this. When we're both clear-headed."

He walked her to the door.

"I understand," she said, and she started untucking his shirt.

Her hands on the skin of his torso made him feel like his head might explode.

She hadn't even unlocked the door yet when she unbuckled his belt and reached into his pants. He slid his hand up under her shirt, his fingers under the lace of her bra, and when he made contact, it was too much.

He backed away from her, mostly because he'd already started, and even now, with her hands off him and his hands off her, he thought it might happen. He buckled his belt.

"I want this, Vic, but we can't keep using it to avoid communicating."

"This is a form of communication."

"I know. But we have to talk, too."

"You don't have to say anything, Walt. I already know."

"What do you know? You don't know how I feel. You've never let me tell you."

"Oh, so this is my fault?"

He ran a hand through his hair.

"What is it that you think you know?"

"I know I can't compete with the kind of love that made you do the things you did."

He turned around and leaned his head against the stucco. It was warmer than the air. He'd always known this was coming, maybe not consciously and maybe not how exactly, but on some level he'd known this is what it would come down to.

"It wasn't love that made me act like that," he said.

"You sure seemed to believe it was." She wasn't slurring her words anymore.

"I was confused, Vic."

"That love defines you."

"Not anymore it doesn't."

#

#

He'd asked her to come with him out to the trailhead to meet with the criminal growers and their parents one last time. She'd agreed, but half an hour before they were set to leave, a call came in about a loud gathering at an abandoned ranch. She'd said she'd come if she finished up in time, but he'd talked with the kids and their parents and collected the logs of their volunteer hours and wished them all well, and she still wasn't there.

After the families were gone, he followed the trail the way they'd followed it three months earlier, when it all started. Fall was still three weeks out, but already there was a dusting of snow on the north side of the mountain. He walked all the way to where they had left the trail and hiked up to the ridge. He stood on the edge, looking down into the ravine. There was no mist now in early September and it looked even deeper than it had back then. The slope seemed more treacherous.

The days were noticeably shorter now, and already the sun was out of the frame. About a quarter mile from the bottom, he saw a figure coming up the trail.

When he realized it was her, he stopped.

"I came as fast as I could," she called up to him. She was a little out of breath.

"You did?"

"Yeah. I said I'd come didn't I?"

He started walking again.

"But you didn't believe me."

"I don't know," he said.

She stopped and looked down the steep incline. "This is the spot."

They sat down together on the edge of the trail with their legs down the slope.

"Don't slip," he said.

"You either."

He could hear the creek a thousand feet down in the bottom of the gulley, and a woodpecker on a tree behind them. He smelled the ponderosas and the pine and her shampoo.

"There's room in here, Vic," he said. "I don't expect you to trust me, but I'm telling you there is."

"I don't know that yet, Walt."

"That's fair."

"But I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be there at some point."

He put his arm around her and pulled her closer. She rested her head on his shoulder.

"You know why you didn't get hurt any worse than you did?" he said.

"You saved me."

"Before that, I mean."

"Why?"

"You didn't tense up. You were fifty feet down there before you knew what was happening."

"I guess if you have to fall, that's the way to do it."

"I guess so," he said.

* * *

 **Just under the wire! Thanks for reading, and have fun on the 10th!**


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